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Ethics official says Mnuchin should not be disciplined for ‘Lego Batman’ pitch

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A top government ethics official said Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin should not be disciplined for plugging “The Lego Batman Movie” — as long as he keeps his promise not to do it again.

Mnuchin handled the controversy better than White House advisor Kellyanne Conway did when she ran afoul of the same law after pitching Ivanka Trump’s fashion line, said Walter Shaub, director of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, in a letter released Tuesday.

Federal employees are prohibited by law from “the endorsement of any product, service or enterprise.” The ethics office cannot discipline an executive branch employee.

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Mnuchin publicly acknowledged that he shouldn’t have urged people to see the film, in which he has a financial stake, and pledged not to repeat the mistake, Shaub said.

Conway did neither.

The White House said Conway had been “counseled” about her comments but would not be disciplined, a decision that Shaub warned at the time could undermine ethics compliance.

The Mnuchin incident “seems to prove my point,” Shaub wrote. The letter was sent Friday to Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), who had asked the agency to review Mnuchin’s “Lego Batman” comments.

Wyden said Tuesday that he agreed with Shaub that “a lack of administration enforcement has created a culture of disregard for these rules.”

Shaub told Wyden that there was a “meaningful distinction in the way Secretary Mnuchin has publicly acknowledged responsibility” for his error compared with how Conway’s handled her incident.

Conway received bipartisan criticism in February for telling people to “go buy Ivanka’s stuff” during an interview on Fox News’ “Fox & Friends” program. Deputy White House counsel Stefan Passantino wrote to the ethics office saying Conway had “acted inadvertently and is highly unlikely to do so again.”

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Mnuchin responded much differently after he answered a lighthearted question at a March 24 event hosted by the Axios news website that aired on C-SPAN2.

Mnuchin was asked to name a movie people should see.

“Well, I’m not allowed to promote anything that I’m involved in. So I just want to have the legal disclosure, you’ve asked me the question, and I am not promoting any product,” he said. “But you should send all your kids to ‘Lego Batman.’”

On Friday, the Treasury Department publicly released a letter to Shaub from Mnuchin in which the secretary admitted that he shouldn’t have pitched the movie. Mnuchin said he refrained from answering a similar question in an interview the next day “and will act similarly in the future.”

He promised to “exercise greater caution to avoid any suggestion that I do not take these important rules seriously.”

The movie was produced by RatPac-Dune Entertainment, a company Mnuchin founded and in which he still holds a financial stake, according to Wyden.

If Mnuchin fails to keep his pledge, the Office of Government Ethics “will seek further action,” Shaub said.

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Wyden said that as the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, which oversees the Treasury Department, “it’s my responsibility to take seriously any possible ethical violations made by our nation’s most powerful officials.”

“Rest assured I intend to follow up with the Office of Government Ethics to ensure that the secretary fulfills his obligations under his ethics agreement,” Wyden said.

Twitter: @JimPuzzanghera

jim.puzzanghera@latimes.com

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